Dull Rules
by Svenja The Strange
Summary: Teenlock! John is a new student who is mute due to a tragic accident; Sherlock tries to get him to talk. Prompted by kiddilunafanfiction on Tumblr. My first prompt ever. Couldn't resist to throw a little johnlock romance in there.


**Note:** Teenlock! John is a new student who is mute due to a tragic accident; Sherlock tries to get him to talk.

prompted by kiddilunafanfiction

This turned out waaaaay longer than I intended to. It's also my first attempt at teenlock au. Hope it's even remotely what you had in mind. Not betad and English is not my first language so please try and be lenient with me and my mistakes.

**Dull Rules**

John Watson is having the worst first day at school a boy could probably have. This new town

his parents dragged him to is absolutely ridiculous. This new school is a bad joke. These new class mates – well, he doesn't want to think about _them_ too much.

One hour of sitting through almost an entire bio class has given him the impression that both cultural and religious or, as a matter of fact, _any _kind of diversity is a foreign word to these people. Horrible small town school filled with legions of country bumpkins that are afraid to accept anything or anyone just a little different from them.

Teenagers are most likely the cruelest and most elitist group of people in the world – if you don't fit the image of their club, you're not going to get in and with the way things are at the moment, John is never going to fit. He knows it, but what can be done?

Even the fairly pretty and very helpful but somewhat shy and nervous brown haired girl, Molly, that was responsible for the unpopular task of showing the new kid around the building before the first lesson started this morning appeared more than just a little unwilling to be seen with him when she escorted John to his room earlier. To give her credit, she _did_ seem to try not to hurt John's feelings but looked so terrified at the thought of being confused as his friend that she brusquely walked two steps in front of him almost the entire time.

"Oh, that's just Sherlock." She answered John's curious gaze as they walked past a room labled "chemistry laboratory" in which a tall, lanky boy in a lab coat and goggles had an incredibly messy haired head bent deeply over a few glasses of dangerous looking liquids. Molly's cheeks turned from light pink to deep crimson as the boy, obviously having noticed the attention from the other side of the glass door, straightened his back and turned to look at them with cool eyes before resuming his experimenting.

"He's the other outsider. Oh, I didn't mean – I meant, he's kind of an outsider." Molly stuttered.

So much about fitting in.

It's no wonder, really, John reckons. There are not exactly an abundance of things about him that would qualify as likable or popular features. He's not particularly good looking, his hair has a pretty generic sandy blonde colour and he is really a bit short for a boy turning seventeen next month. Also he's mute. And in therapy because of it, which is something he doesn't like to talk about much but also something the well meaning bio teacher Mrs. Hudson obviously felt obliged to share with the entire class room in order to gain John some sympathy that she hoped would result in friendship in the end. Someone should have told the lady that a boy who survived a bus crash that killed every single of his former classmates and who is now seeing a therapist because he's not spoken even one word since that accident usually creeps teenagers out rather than gives them ideas about befriending said boy.

But never mind.

There are also the jumpers he usually wears which no one ever seems to like and in his head he can still pretend that _they _are the reason he is being shunned. They are at least a less depressing reason.

As the bio class continues to bore, John snaps out of his thoughts and notices that he's been doodling pages and pages of morbid looking skulls again. He sometimes does that. Just an odd coping mechanism of his brain when his thoughts are threatening to drift off to a dark place.

With a surreptitious gesture he tries to hide the doodles under his hand, but much to his annoyance, finds that it is already too late. A couple of students are whispering about him, giving each other horrified looks and shaking their heads. The quittance of their disapproval of his person arrives within the following minute as a small piece of paper is handed to him under the table.

It simply says: _Freak._

_Charming_, John thinks and returns to his text book. The teacher didn't _have_ to tell everyone in this class his life story, now did she. But alas, with the damage done, at least John doesn't need to pretend. It is not like he isn't used to being bullied for his condition, but back home he has at least had a handful of friends, who were just fine with it. But this lot – by the looks of it there is not one amongst them willing to put up with "the weird mute kid". As if his muteness is some kind of a contagious disease that might leap from him to the next person who dares to be foolish enough to venture near him any given second. It isn't. But the chronic state of being the unpopular, lonely kid is and although John is perfectly prepared to hate the whole bunch of them, he cannot really blame anyone for trying to avoid getting infected.

As the bell rings John makes a point of hurrying out of the room as quickly as he can. The hallway smells horribly of rotten eggs and a thick, yellow smoke is pouring out of the open door of the chemistry lab. John holds his breath until he is outside and finds a nice tree right next to the gym, a pleasingly large distance away from where all the other students are eating.

Eating with people is highly overrated anyway. When he's eating, he's eating. He doesn't want to chat about who's wearing what or how Mrs. Hudson's test was totally unfair anyway.

It is only after John has already half finished his lunch, when he notices a slim, dark clad figure leaning against a nearby wall, smoking a cigarette with pronounced calmness. As the figure becomes aware of John, he turns to reveal a long, pale face framed by a mop of untidy curls. His eyes are of an unusually pale colour and the streaks of the late morning sun throw distinct shadows over his sharply cut skull with the prominent cheekbones and elegantly curved lips. John recognizes him instantly as the pretty boy in the lab coat who was experimenting in the chemistry lab earlier today.

_Sherlock_, the "other outsider".

_Having a bad morning_? Sherlock gestures to John in sign language. His eyes scan John's appearance from head to toe within a second and he smirks.

_You know sign language?_ John can't help but break into an amazed smile. He has never met a boy his age who knew how to do it. Perhaps, just perhaps, this person is worth walking over and talking to. John decides to give it a try.

"Well, obviously." Sherlock replies sarcastically and shrugs. His hair falls into his eyes in messy, dark locks, half covering the expression of barely concealed boredom. Not so much with John or this particular conversation but with the world and the entire universe in general. It is a feeling John can relate to more than he'd feel comfortable admitting out loud.

Sherlock let's smoke blow out of his nostrils that curl ornamentally against the whitish beams of the morning sun.

_I don't think you're supposed to smoke here, it's against school rules. What if someone catches you?_

"Rules are dull. And no one ever catches me."

The tall boy grins a rakish, wide grin and shrugs elegantly. He sucks in a last deep breath of smoke then flicks the cigarette away with a casual gesture and blows the smoke into the cool morning air between sensually pursed lips watching John amusedly from the corner of his eye.

"I'm Sherlock, by the way, though you've probably already been told. And you're John. You moved here three days ago with your parents and your younger brother. You're not really looking forward to your first day at this sorry excuse for a school but you dutifully ate your bowl of cereals for breakfast this morning, pocketed your smart phone, which was a gift by your brother – No phones! That's another school rule, by the way, so don't get caught with that – let your mother drive you here in her night blue Ford. It only took you two classes to realise the idiots on this school are brainless morons and that you're better off without them - you're right about that – they won't get why your are the way you are. You're mute. But not because there is something physically wrong with you, your vocal cords or throat. It's because, for some reason, at some point a part of you simply chose not to talk anymore. It's psychosomatic. I'm assuming your therapist thinks it's PTSD and that you feel guilty about witnessing all of your classmates die and being the only survivor. A frequent diagnosis. And often the right one, only not in your case. Because I think, judging by the resentful and bored way you look at people around you, you've simply lost the desire to speak. I mean, there is absolutely nothing to say to those normal, narrow minded people when you've been through what you've been through. I think that's the reason why you're mute. It _is_ psychosomatic but it's certainly not PTSD. You're not interested in normal people. Normal people are idiots. Well, I'm not normal – not by a long shot. So, you might as well talk to _me_."

John stares at him open mouthed. Molly has been understating: this guy is surely a lot more than "kind of an outsider". He is not just drop dead gorgeous in a very peculiar and alien sort of way, but also brilliant, and extraordinary and a genius. And a bit rude. In a place where muteness and doodling skulls stigmatizes you as a "freak", being a genius of apparently Hawking-like proportions probably comes as close to a social suicide as it gets. This boy is amazing and John has the feeling that no one ever tells him that.

For the first time since the accident he opens his mouth to even try and say something but no words will come out.

"Oh, well then." Sherlock smirks at the sight. "I will just have to keep on trying. I'll get you to talk in the end. You'll see. All you need is someone who shows you that life can still be fun."

John finds himself equally taken aback and amused by the incredible confidence the boy seems to possess in his own powers.

_Someone has told you all of this. And the Thing with the PTSD was just a lucky guess._

He communicates just to try and tickle Sherlock's reserve a little.

"Well, I suppose someone _could_ have told me all of it. People never talk to me, though. And I never guess. I just have a way of… noticing things. Things others don't. Like the fact that I can tell that your phone was a gift by your brother from the marks around the plug, that your therapist is rubbish by the way you look at people and the fact that you're going to sit next to me in math class by the way this conversation is going."

_That's amazing._

"Really?" Sherlock seems rather astonished, but in a delighted way.

_Yes. _

"Hm. That's not how the other students normally react. John Watson." He says John's name as though he is trying to find a hidden understatement, a deeper meaning in it. "John Watson." It sounds full and heavy uttered in this voice that is more sonorous than that of most teenage boys.

John just looks at him.

"Well then, John Watson." Sherlock picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder with an offhand gesture. "I have to run. Left my riding crop in the biology lab. But I'll be seeing you on the seat next to me in math class tomorrow."

And then he winks and goes away.

John is still fairly confused about the whole Sherlock Holmes thing when he leaves the building several miserably lonely classes later on his way home. It does nothing much to dissolve this confusion when a group of students about his age approaches him in the yard. A boy with friendly hazel eyes, who looks at him curiously from a distance (Gordon? Gavin? Greg?), that shy girl Molly, who has shown him around school earlier and a pale, rather geeky looking guy who is clutching the hand of a pretty girl with dark curls. Sally, John remembers. He sat next to her in bio this morning.

"Hey." The girl addresses him. "You're the new kid. John, right? Can you understand me?" she has freckles all over her nose.

John suppresses the impulse to roll his eyes. _I'm mute, not deaf or dumb, for goodness sake_. Instead he simply nods.

"I'm going to give you some good advice, John. Stay away from Sherlock Holmes. If you're going to try and find any friends at all at this school: stay away from him. No one likes him. He's trouble."

_Yes, well. This statement certainly made me like _you_ better, but whatever_. John nods again making sure the girl sees the critically raised eyebrow he is giving her. Then he nods a brief goodbye happy to spy his mother's car in the lot and starts to head towards it. All of this is not going so great.

He sees Sherlock again the next morning as John is climbing out of his mum's car. Sherlock's insanely lanky figure is leaning coolly against the trunk of a nearby tree, the collar of his black jacket is turned up against the chilly morning air pronouncing that pair of sharp cheekbones that have no right to look so decidedly model-ish and sophisticated on a boy his age. As John draws nearer Sherlock extinguishes his cigarette and meets him halfway across the yard just as though he has been waiting for him to arrive.

"Morning." He greets and looks a bit disappointed that John doesn't reply. "Still not talking then I see."

John shrugs apologetically. He's sorry, he really is. Sherlock is obviously really trying to make him speak.

"You were in the football team of your old school, probably have well trained legs. Would you care to do something absolutely forbidden and dangerous to show the idiots on this school just how idiotic they really are?"

It sounds like potential trouble. It sounds stupid. It sounds _good_.

John nods.

So it happens that he finds himself standing on the roof of the school building next to Sherlock Holmes in between classes looking over to the roof of the gym building. The two buildings are separated from each other by a gap that is a good three and a half meters wide and goes a good ten meters down to the ground, where a group of students are standing and looking up at them critically.

John was having second thoughts. He tugged at Sherlock's sleeve doubtfully.

_Why are we doing this again? _

"Because bloody Anderson wouldn't believe me that I'm perfectly able to calculate the approximate distance that an at least averagely trained individual with a body height of at least 1, 60 meters can jump and I'm going to prove it to him by doing it and asking you to do it."

_Basically we're risking our lives to prove that you can jump this far._

"Basically we're risking our lives to show these fucking idiots that my calculations are correct and that I am, in fact, just as clever as I claim to be."

_And there I went thinking it was for no good reason._

With a face more soft and solemn as John has seen so far, Sherlock turns to him and says in sign language:

_You can still back out. No hard feelings._

And without waiting for John's reply he takes a few steps run-up and jumps, his jacket flapping in the wind and his long, skinny legs floundering frantically in the air. John's breath catches in his throat as he opens his mouth in a soundless shout of Sherlock's name. _Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall._ He has only just met this unbelievable person and he is rather looking forward to getting to know him better.

The extent of his own relief as the gangly bastard hits the gym's roof with a hollow thud and an almost inaudible "Ouch!" surprises John. He has only met Sherlock yesterday and already the thought of him being in danger is making John cringe with fear. Perhaps at some point he will have to have a serious conversation with this boy about the worth of life and about not throwing it away to prove to stupid Anderson or dumb, old Sally that his math is correct.

And still, as he takes his own few steps of run-up and banishes the thought from his mind that what he is about to do is a very, very silly thing, he can't quite shake the impression that he is going to do this a lot more often in the future: going after Sherlock Holmes on one of his potentially fatal missions to prove he's clever.

The edge of the roof vanishes under his feet and the gym rooftop out of his view as he jumps as high and wide as he can. For a moment there it almost feels like flying, almost feels like he will jump entirely across the gym and right into the blue horizon lying beyond. The feeling is glorious.

But only fractions of seconds later the hard reality of gravity takes hold and pulls John down. Not far enough he realizes too late.

He shouts out but still no sound escapes his throat as his shins scrape against the concrete of the edge of the rooftop and he slides down until his hands find the edge and grab. His feet are dangling in the air. From the ground there are some horrified shrieks and shouts.

But then there is a big, white hand grabbing for John and moments later he feels his weight being yanked jerkily upwards. And John fights his way to the top.

The two boys lie breathlessly near the edge for a while until John realizes that Sherlock is still clutching his arm and he gives the taller boy a goofy grin.

_This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever done, _John manages to communicate to Sherlock as soon as his arms start working again. His shins are bleeding but he doesn't care.

And they both break into adrenaline flooded laughs that makes their bodies rock and contract until their sides hurt. John can't remember the last time he has laughed like that. And he can't remember the last time actual sounds were coming out of him.

"Come on, let's get down here." Sherlock say after a minute of laughing that subsides in exhausted chuckling and ends in breathless, blissful grins and he get's up to take a careful look over the edge of the roof. "There is a fire escape on the other side of the building we can get down. I'm just going to have a look if the coast is –"

"SHERLOCK HOLMES!"

The voice is that of a man who appears more than just a little angry.

"I want you down here AT ONCE."

"Oops."

And five minutes later they find themselves in the firm and merciless care of Mycroft Holmes, alternate head teacher and older brother of Sherlock Holmes, who is more than just a little upset with the behavior of his younger sibling.

"What were you thinking?" he chides as he escorts the boys quickly to the head teachers office. "You've had your last warning two weeks ago when you set fire to the chemistry lab with one of your damnable experiments. This can't continue, Sherlock. You're going to get expelled. Think about what Mummy will say. And now you're dragging uninvolved, new students in there too. You are in serious trouble this time, brother mine."

_I apologise on account of my little brother. _ He tells John in flawless sign language.

Sherlock rolls his eyes at John's surprised look.

"Mycroft knows _everything._" He huffs.

John feels horrible. The thought of having to watch the one great person he has met in years being expelled is almost unbearable. He has just laughed with this boy the way he hasn't laughed in _ages._ There is no way he is just going to wordlessly stand around and watch him walk out of his life.

_It was because of me_, John interrupts. _It was a dare to show the other students that I am brave, even though I don't speak. Sherlock came to persuade me to come down but when I wouldn't do it, he jumped with me to make sure I was safe. And I was lucky he was there. I would have fallen if he hadn't helped me up. _

Mycroft Holmes is looking at John with an expression torn between suspicion, admiration and thunderstruck anger. He expresses his obvious doubts by repeatedly looking back and forth between Sherlock and John before sighing in grudging defeat.

"Very well, then. Mr. Watson, you have earned yourself an official warning on your first day at this school. Congratulations. Three warnings and we'll have to expel you. Sherlock, I still need to take you to the head teacher. Let's just hope that Mr. Watsons account will work in your favour."

As Mycroft ushers Sherlock into the direction of the head teacher's office John can see him turning his head towards him. He is beaming.

_Thank you_, he mouths with an expression of endless affection, as if can't quite believe that John is actually throwing himself into the breach for him. And then the secretary asks John to leave.

"I hope he's getting expelled." John hears Sally saying offhandedly as he passes her in the hallway. "They already said it was his last change last time around and his brother can't save him from getting into trouble forever."

John leaves her standing and goes away.

Times ticks by and lunch break is nearing at an end as Sherlock finally emerges from the building with a wide grin on his face, looking triumphant.

"John!" he heads towards him. Those insanely long legs of his make the impression of being even longer when engaged in running John notes and finds himself once more baffled by how beautiful Sherlock actually is.

Beautiful and brilliant and an idiot.

And then the idiot reaches John and with a smooth, elegant gesture he dips forward and kisses John right on the lips with his pronounced mouth pressed softly and warmly and pleasantly wet against his own. Not just butterflies but a whole botanist's vasculum of exotic insects explodes in his stomach and causes his body to tingle straight to his fingertips and toes. Everyone is probably staring but John forgets about that as Sherlock drops his bag to the ground carelessly and lays two insanely big, warm hands on John's face to deepen the kiss. The world around them fades away for several blissful moments.

"Hey, hey, hey, you boys!" the shrill but not altogether displeased voice of Mrs. Hudson sounds and causes them to break apart. "I'm very happy to see you get along so well but I'm sorry. This is a school and no drive-in cinema. No intimacies in public places, not since the incident in the photographic lab. You know the rules, Sherlock."

"Rules are _dull_." John says and is startled by the sound of his own voice. Now people are staring even more.

Sherlock's chuckle is uncommonly full and deep as he picks up his bag and pulls John into the direction of the parking lot.

"Hey, don't you have classes to attend? Mr. Holmes, you don't want me to inform you brother about you playing truant again, do you?" Mrs. Hudson shouts after them but Sherlock just waves a noncommittal goodbye without even turning around.

"See? I told you it was psychosomatic. I told you I'd fix it. I told you you'd pick the seat next to me in math class."

John feels his mouth stretch into a grin that threatens to rip his face in half. He can't believe this is happening. Is this really happening?

"Who said I'm going to sit next to you in math class?"

"The simple fact, my dear John, that you're going to." Sherlock's smile is cocky and adorable.

"Oh, just a lucky guess."

"I never guess."

"Yes, you do."

And John Watson has the impression that from now on this town, this school and life in general are going to be a good deal less horrible.


End file.
